


Insurrection

by bardic_inspiration



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, doesnt really require a whole bunch of rvb knowledge though, janus and remus are mentioned but not seen, rated teen for mentions of guns (a minor wound but he's fine just annoyed) and extreme mental stress, red vs blue au, specifically they're in project freelancer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:39:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26469565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bardic_inspiration/pseuds/bardic_inspiration
Summary: While Roman causes distractions throughout the ship that houses Project Freelancer, Patton guides a half-conscious Virgil to their escape ship only to be stopped by a teammate.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Insurrection

Alarms blared in every room of the _Mother of Invention_. Red lights flashed and speakers crackled to life with a robotic voice:

_“Security breach. Level zero.”_

In the middle of space, security breaches were pretty unusual. It just so happened that this one was able to succeed because it began inside the ship.

Gunshots and small explosions echoed in the distance, but Patton tried not to think about those. He had to trust that Roman would be able to take care of himself and meet up at the escape ship as planned. Patton had his own job to focus on.

Patton glanced down at the man he was half guiding, half dragging down the hall. Virgil stumbled along, his eyes going back and forth from being either closed or unfocused, his mouth barely moving as he murmured nonsense Patton couldn’t decipher. Luckily, most of Virgil’s power armor had been beside him in the infirmary, with the exception of his helmet. Patton had made the split second decision to take the time to armor Virgil up, and he was certain that Virgil wouldn’t have been able to make it this far without it.

Patton’s own armor, light blue with white detailing on the arms and helmet as opposed to Virgil’s purple with black details, was scratched up, but luckily he hadn’t taken many shots in the initial fight before he’d split up from Roman. He was fine. He just had to get Virgil to safety.

It was difficult to see Virgil like this. Typically he was a force of destruction in battle. Matching up with him in training was a guarantee that you’d leave with bruises at best and a trip to the med bay at worst.

Virgil wasn’t too badly physically injured, save for a couple band-aids on his hands, now hidden by gloves and armor, from where he’d gotten scratched by equipment when he had tried to flee from the medical wing just three days prior. And the bandages wrapped around his neck all the way to the very top, peeking out from the black fabric of his high-necked suit.

Patton tried not to look at Virgil’s neck.

Even through the suit fabric and the bandages, he could see the tiny bump at the back of his neck that indicated the AI implantation. The thought of it made Patton’s own neck ache. He’d instructed his own AI to stay out of sight as soon as they reached Virgil. In the past, Virgil had interacted with Patton’s AI perfectly fine. But now, Patton didn’t want to take the risk of causing his friend more distress.

The pair reached the end of the hall. There would be just one more stretch and then they’d reach the escape ship. They could fly away from the _Mother of Invention_ with Roman and figure out where to go from there.

There was just one problem. Patton knew his teammates well. In his time at Project Freelancer, Patton had saved their lives and they had saved his. Mission after mission, despite whatever personal opinions the group harbored, they would always have their teammates’ backs.

And they would always know their next moves.

Patton stopped just outside the door at the end of the hall, and he knew the report before his AI could even give it to him.

“ _Detecting one agent in the room ahead_ ,” his AI confirmed as a voice in his head.

“I know,” Patton replied quietly, typing a password into the control panel by the door and grabbing his pistol in his left hand as it opened. He tightened his grip on Virgil, who murmured in response but didn’t pull away.

Patton stepped through the doorway, entering a long gray hallway that was empty except for the large pipes running on either wall and a single figure standing at the other end. He wore dark blue armor with black details. He had a shotgun raised and aimed at Patton. Agent Oregon.

“Logan,” Patton called out, trying to keep his voice steady. Virgil stirred at the name, looking up. “Please don’t do this.”

“Do _what_ , Agent Florida?” Logan replied. Patton stiffened at the codename. “Avoid a court-martial? That is my current goal. Put the gun down. You and Agent West Virginia have not been part of the firefight on the upper decks. You can easily get out of this with my assistance.”

Another explosion sounded. What was Roman doing up there, driving a tank? Patton tried not to think about it.

“I can’t do that, Logan,” Patton said, his voice cracking. Logan visibly tensed as Patton and Virgil took a hesitant step forward.

“I don’t understand! You have never been one to break rules, to break laws, Patton, why are you doing this?” Logan yelled. His voice was filled with anger, but Patton could detect the sadness and betrayal beneath it. “First Agent- first _Janus_ \- leaves, and now you and Roman? And you’re taking Virgil? Is he even conscious enough to know what you’re doing?”

Patton took a deep breath, trying to stay calm and patient. He couldn’t afford a fight with Logan. This was wasting enough time. Roman would be at the ship any minute now, and he would have to hold it until Patton arrived, not only because he had Virgil, but because he had the only concrete evidence of Project Freelancer’s crimes: a small hard drive in a compartment in his armor, left for him by Janus before the fellow agent had disappeared.

“I’m breaking the rules because they aren’t right. And when I walked in the med bay, Virgil’s heart rate went to normal for the first time in days,” Patton explained, daring to take another step forward. He could only pray that if Logan shot, he’d shoot Patton instead of Virgil. “Logan, please trust me. If you come with us I can show you everything. All of this, everything the Director’s done, the AI fragments, it’s… it’s so bad, Logan, and so wrong. They aren’t following guidelines. They aren’t following _laws_.”

At the last sentence, he nodded down to Virgil, whose gaze was becoming more focused. Maybe the addition of Logan was helping him focus on the present. Logan lowered his gun just an inch, and even though he had his helmet on, Patton could see his head turn slightly in Virgil’s direction. Patton’s chest ached as he remembered standing outside the surgery room with Logan and Roman three days ago.

_“He will still likely be unconscious when the implantation is complete,” Logan noted, watching as Patton rocked back and forth on his feet. The three of them had just finished training. Logan still wore all of his armor except for his helmet, but Patton and Roman had taken the time to get their arm and chest gear off, leaving their legs be for now._

_“I woke up after a few minutes, and Roman was awake almost right away,” Patton recalled. Roman nodded, crossing his arms._

_“Yeah, Logan, not all of us were out for a day,” he teased. Logan rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to reply, but he froze when yells began to sound on the other side of the door they were waiting by._

_Patton’s ice ran cold. That was Virgil._

_“What’s going on?” he gasped as a few crashes joined in with the yells. Roman rushed forward, but quickly backed off as footsteps sounded behind the three. Three medical personnel, wearing white and light blue, rushed by. One pressed an ID badge to a scanner by the door and it raised. The sight made Patton feel sick._

_Virgil was wearing just the black bodysuit they had beneath their armor, and he was writhing on the ground, clawing desperately at the back of his neck while the medical personnel tried to get ahold of his flailing limbs. He was constantly spouting out sounds that were barely forming words, but Patton caught ‘goodbye’ and ‘forget.’_

_Just before the door shut, Virgil looked up through the dark hair hanging in his eyes and made eye contact with Patton. He let out some form of strangled cry before the door slammed shut._

Patton glanced down at Virgil, at the bandages around his neck. He couldn’t sit by and let the program hurt anyone else. And now, with the evidence Janus had left him, there was no real choice.

“Logan, you know me,” Patton said, swallowing his fear and walking down the hall. He didn’t stop when Logan tensed up again. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t positive it’s the right thing. Come with us.”

He was now standing ten feet away from Logan. If Agent Oregon decided to fire, Patton would die right here.

A second passed. Two, three, four. Then, with a loud sigh, Logan lowered his gun, holstering it on his back. He stepped forward and Patton nearly collapsed with relief when he helped support Virgil from the other side.

“I trust you,” Logan said evenly.

Patton nodded and the two started forward. Logan typed the password into the keypad, opening the door, and the two reached the ship’s smallest launch bay. A single ship was there, ready for their escape. Another door hissed open and Logan and Patton immediately both raised their guns with their free hands, but a figure in red armor with white details stumbled in before quickly shutting the door, gasping for breath.

“Roman! Are you alright?” Patton called as he and Logan brought Virgil to the ship. Logan handed Virgil completely over to Patton again, opening the ship’s back hatch.

“Remus shot me in the shoulder!” Roman fumed, running up to the ship and following Logan, Patton, and Virgil up the ramp of the back hatch.

“You couldn’t convince him to come?” Patton asked, disappointed. He and Remus didn’t get along, and really Roman didn’t get along with him either, but Patton knew Roman had been hoping he could bring his twin.

“No,” Roman gritted, yanking his helmet off with his left arm. Patton set Virgil down into one of the ship’s seats and glanced at Roman, taking in the bullet wound on his right shoulder. It was right between the plates of armor and red was dripping down his side, but Roman seemed more annoyed than anything.

“Roman, get the first aid kit, it’s by the hatch door, but watch yourself, I’m closing it,” Logan said shortly, walking past the others and taking the pilot seat, starting up the ship. “We need to leave now. It won’t take them long to figure out which bay we’re in. Patton, get Virgil strapped in.”

Roman grabbed the first aid kit and sat across from Virgil, pulling off the plates of armor on his injured arm and glancing up at Patton.

“I see you got Specs in on our fun treason,” he said lightly. Patton smiled and shrugged. “I talked to Remus, and especially since Janus left, I think he agrees with us, but… he’s going to stay behind and see if he can do more help that way. If he thinks he can do it safely then he’ll reach out, but he wants to do some damage from the inside.”

“And then he shot you?” Patton asked, kneeling down in front of Virgil.

“And then he shot me,” Roman confirmed. “He said it had to look convincing, but you know? I think he just wanted to shoot me.”

Patton laughed quietly, reached up to strap Virgil in. The ship’s engines began to rumble as he reached for the first strap, pulling it across Virgil’s lap.

But something in Virgil’s mind realized he was being restrained, and his eyes went from being half open to being wide with terror as he instinctively pressed back against Patton’s hands, his breath hitching.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Patton tried to sooth, taking off his own helmet so he could see his face. “Virgil, it’s me, I’ve got to get you secure, we’re about to take off. It’s okay, you’re safe. We’re getting out of here. I’m here with Roman and Logan.”

For a moment, Virgil didn’t respond, but then his eyes flashed with recognition and he relaxed, letting Patton finish and pull the safety bar down in front of him. He looked back and forth between Patton and Roman, then up at Logan in the pilot’s seat. He reached a shaking hand to the back of his neck, but Patton took it before he could touch the bandages.

“Don’t,” Patton said softly. He gently squeezed Virgil’s hand. “It’s, uh… it’s still in there. They said they didn’t have a safe way to remove it yet, which I don’t really believe. But we’ll figure it out, okay? You just rest.”

None of the agents knew exactly what had happened when Virgil’s AI was implanted. The Director had given them a quick briefing, explaining that an unforeseen error in the artificial intelligence had surfaced during the implantation process and wrought havoc on its surroundings. Unfortunately, those surroundings happened to be Virgil’s mind, and the exact effects on Virgil were unknown.

Virgil nodded, letting his head fall back against the headrest and closing his eyes. Patton walked up to sit next to Logan just as the ship raised off the ground.

“Brace yourselves. The bay doors won’t open, they’ve overridden the system. We’ll have to blast ourselves out,” Logan reported, flicking a switch that raised the ship’s guns. Patton turned and watched as Roman scrambled up from his seat to sit next to Virgil, strapping himself in and pulling down the safety bar.

“Hehe… you scared?” Virgil croaked, opening an eye to glance at Roman.

“As if, I was coming over here so you wouldn’t be scared!” Roman fired back immediately.

Warmth bloomed in Patton’s chest. He couldn’t help but smile as he turned to face forward. That was the most coherent Virgil had been in three days.

Logan pressed a red button and began to fire. He didn’t shoot at the bay doors, but instead at their control panel. After only a few seconds, the panel exploded in a shower of sparks and the doors opened, revealing the vast expanse of space in front of them.

Without a second’s hesitation, Logan directed the ship out of the bay and sped forward, watching warily for any retaliation from the _Mother of Invention_. But the colossal ship behind them didn’t even try to fire.

“This ship’s way too small, they’ll never hit us,” Patton explained. “And judging from the explosions I heard, their other smaller ships aren’t in good condition, Roman?”

Roman laughed from further back in the ship.

“I wrecked most of them with a tank. I didn’t even know we _had_ a tank!” he called. Logan gave a small smile at that before turning back to Patton.

“So, where are we heading?” he asked, pulling up a map on one of the control panel’s screens. Patton reached forward and entered a set of coordinates.

“A place in the middle of nowhere called Blood Gulch Canyon. We’ll be able to stop and regroup there for a bit before moving on,” he said.

Logan nodded and changed trajectory, heading for the coordinates. Patton hesitated for a moment before pressing a point on the armor covering his forearm. A small panel swung open and revealed a soldier’s dog tag- _Janus’s_ dog tag. But it was more than it seemed.

He inserted the disguised flash drive into the control panel, loading up the files that Janus had given him. All sorts of details about the Director, about Project Freelancer, and the artificial intelligence system that had changed everything.

“It’s a long ride there,” Patton noted, opening the first file. “So I have plenty of time to fill you in.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! This is just a oneshot, a full Red vs Blue au (or even just a Project Freelancer au) would be... so much. There's a possibility for more oneshots but not a big work


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